My two robins were back today, having been AWOL for a few visits. One is still braver than the other and is the one who is happy to take mealworms from in front of the shed, while the other one sits up on the fence.

I put all my energy into the smallest bed, Bed 5, in order to try out the full process. I removed the huge piles of clay and the weeds. The poppy that was somehow still alive has been moved to Bed 3 – somehow I managed to avoid the bulbs. I edged the inside of the frame with cardboard and filled the post holes that were somewhat cavernous. As I dropped balls of clay and soil down there, I could hear them hitting water.

The hard work was dragging a third of the soil back at a time and laying cardboard before re-covering it. I’m not entirely sure if I’m going to do this for all the beds; maybe for some I’ll do the more traditional thing of simply putting cardboard down on top of what’s there. But I’ve done some good work on my soil.

The next thing will be leaves and compost; this one isn’t big enough to get hügel sticks as well. Then it’ll be covered in its plastic until spring.